How Students Can Increase Their Professional Odds
By: Career & Professional Development
Last month, we discussed how to help your students deal with rejection in regards to applications for jobs, internships, club positions, and more. While that is an important and practically inevitable experience that your student will face in their professional development, there are things they can do in order to increase their chances of interviews and offers. Career & Professional Development is here to help students prepare for applications and interviews for a variety of position types, not just internships or jobs. That means that if your student has their eye on a particular club, part-time job, or officer role on campus, they should still ensure that CPD is a stop they make before they apply. However, here are a few things that we typically recommend to all students who are applying for any role.
1.Know the Position: This may sound simple, but read the job description. As a matter of fact, read it multiple times, save or print a copy so you can refer back to it before your interview, and be prepared to articulate why you are a good fit for that specific role in that particular organization.
2.Tailor your documents: If selection committees are going to take the time to get to know you on paper and in person, they want to see that you have taken the time to get to know their organization in return. Submitting generic résumés and cover letters is not going to catch the eye of the recruiter because they want to know that you actually understand what you are applying for. The job of the hiring committee is to pick the person who is going to be the best fit for the role, and that often times means picking a candidate who is excited enough about the position to spend their time diving into the details of what it entails.
3.Prepare for the interview: One of the most important things that students need to know about the hiring process is that a résumé and cover letter will not get you a job or internship. Those documents are incredibly important, but their function is to get the applicant selected for an interview, which is where hiring decisions are made. The mistake many applicants make is that they spend a lot of time preparing their documents, and yet forget to practice for this very important next step in the application process. For example, a question I hear often from students is, “How do I answer the question, ‘Tell me about yourself?’” This is one of the most common interview questions and is often the first thing asked of an interviewee, yet is so vague that it can be really hard to respond to if you have not thought through your answer. If a candidate doesn’t start off their interview with a professional, intentional answer to the first question, they may have already lost their chance to make a good impression on the interviewers. My recommendation for answering this question is to think of it in three parts; general background, relevant skills or experiences, and then tailored interest in the job. The interviewee can start off by giving their major, year in school, hometown, general areas of interest and other broad information. Then they will move in to speaking about a few of their most relevant skills or experiences that relate to the position; for example, a position they held in a club, a project they did in a class, or a previous job or internship. Finally, they will directly address why they are applying for the position and would be a good fit. I tell students to think of it as a movie trailer for the movie that is your whole interview. If this answer was all the interviewers saw of your interview, they would still get a sense of who you are as a candidate. Working through the answer to this very common question is just one of many ways we can help students strategize for their upcoming interview, regardless of the type of position.
4.Write a thank you note: Manners matter, especially when it comes to interacting with a hiring committee. Sending a quick thank you note to each interviewer can show that you have the courtesy to engage in a professional way. It takes no more than a few minutes to write a thank you note and students can pick up free thank you cards from the CPD front desk, so there is really no excuse for failing to thank the interviewers.